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By Sandra Olmsted

What Americans know about Africa is limited and skewed by films like Coming to America and now news reports of the ebola epidemic. Africa consists of 50 plus nations and spans climates of arid desert, tropical, rain forest, and subarctic on its highest peaks. Most of the continent’s population lives far below the first world standards and even farther below the imaginary Prince Akeem Eddie Murphy embodied in Coming to America. Ravaged by AIDS and other diseases the first world can cure or could cure and riddled with political strife and unrest — all orphan makers, Africa has only potential, and that is what director Philippe Falardeau shows in the world in The Good Lie. While not the story of real people, Margaret Nagle’s screenplay draws on and is “inspired by” the experiences of thousands of “Lost Boys of Sudan,” refugees of both genders who emigrated to the United States between the mid 80s and the post-911 terrorism fears, which halted the program.

The Good Lie opens in a typical Sudanese village in the 1980s. While the older boys, who tend herds in the fields, hide, the rebel militia slaughters the adults, the girls, and the younger children. Theo (Okwar Jale) rushed back to the village and rounds up a few surviving children, including his sister Abital (Keji Jale), and then Theo, Abital, their brother Mamere (Peterdeng Mongok) and several other children set off on footage towards the border. This extended family of related children proclaim that Theo is now the chief and must lead them. Ill-equipped to undertake such a journey, they suffer hungry, injury, thirst, and finally loss when the youngest among them dies.

Almost to the border and supposed safety, they meet a column of refugees, mostly other Sudanese children like themselves, fleeing in the other direction, across their war-torn nation towards the opposite border. They befriend a small group of children and form a family unit which now includes the Bible quoting Jeremiah (Thon Kueth) and Paul (Deng Ajuet). They and the other refugees soon learn that the militia still hunts those fleeing. Later, Theo senses trouble and leads most of his tiny tribe to safety in a harrowing river crossing. Because they are all sick, hungry, tired, and injured physically and/or emotionally, Mamere, who is especially attune to the physical needs of the tribe, convinces Theo to stop for the night. An encounter with the militia which will haunt Mamere for the rest of his life also makes him chief.

Having walked 735 miles, they finally reach the relative safety of Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, where hundreds of thousands of refugee live in a makeshift city. About thirteen years pass, and the grown up Jeremiah (Ger Duany), Paul (Emmanuel Jal), Mamere (Arnold Oceng), and Abital (Kuoth Wiel) are finally allowed to immigrate to America. However, the men ended up in Kansas City, and because girls must live with a host family and because none are available in Kansas City, Abital ends up in Boston. Because the refugees’ sponsor can’t meet them at the Kansas City airport, Carrie (Reese Witherspoon), a hard-boiled employment agency employee, meets Jeremiah, Paul, and Mamere and takes them to their apartment. Culture shock, some humorous like the jello mold, light switches, and ringing telephones ensue. Other examples director Falardeau unflinchingly uses to point out the problems and ugliness of modern life in the first world.

With Carrie’s help and the help of Jack (Corey Stoll), the employment agency owner, the young men navigate finding jobs and try to get Abital to Kansas City. Paul, who is good with his hands and thinks like an engineer, gets a job in a factory, but when his coworkers can’t keep up with his output, they give him drugs to slow him down. Jeremiah works in a grocery store and abhors throwing away perfectly good food. To him, it is ethically and morally wrong to throw food away while starving people come to steal it, and Carrie must explain that bosses can be jerks but are still the boss. Eventually, Jeremiah finds his way towards his own destiny. Meanwhile, Mamere dreams of becoming a doctor and starts working several jobs to attend junior college, where he learns about “the good lie” while studying Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. When news comes from Kakuma, Mamere travels back to the refugee camp.

Themes of defining family, the moral and ethical challenges of modern life, and the American dream give the film a strong backbone, and Falardeau and Nagle hit them all a little too consistently. The Good Lie, however, touches the heart because of Falardeau’s careful direction and Nagle’s sensitive, thoughtful script reveal the strong morals and ethics that these young people hold close despite the horrors they have seen. Falardeau, who worked as a cameraman on a documentary in Sudan, and Nagle imbues the film with empathy, allowing the actors to embody the characters. The actors, from the young African children, to the Sudanese refugees, to the descendants of Sudanese refugees, to the Hollywood stars, all give humanistic performances and share the screen equally. Kudos to the Academy Award winning Witherspoon for never upstaging the novice performers and to Mindy Marin for courageous casting choices. Falardeau also uses the beauty of Africa to contrast with the horrors the children experience even though much of the violence occurs off screen, leaving the worst of horror to audiences’ imaginations. Martin Leon’s powerful music and Ronald Plante’s smart cinematography help the audience feel the horrors of what the children endure.

The Good Lie, a Warner Bros. release, is rated PG-13 for thematic elements, some violence, brief strong language and drug use and runs In English with subtitles for the Nuer and Dinka dialects, The Good Lie is in theaters now.

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